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Tag des Denkmals

Perhaps visitors to Vienna have noticed that part of the city is surrounded by hills. If you walk, for example, east from the Stephansdom there is no chance you will miss them. It is likely that the most famous hill in the city is the Kahlenberg. Located in the district of Döbling with a height…

On June 27, 1976 a group of activists, referring to themselves as the Arenauten, occupied the abandoned area of the St. Marx slaughterhouse to protest the lack of alternative culture venues for young people. Eventually the activists had to move to a part of the slaughterhouse built in 1908. That is where the story of…

Out in the 14th district is a rather unassuming house that has quite a history. Since 2010 it has housed the Bahá’í Center Austria, which is the Austrian seat of a religion that originated in Iran in the 19th century, and currently centered in Haifa, Israel. But the building began life in 1903 as a…

Perhaps you know that in the very old days it was customary for churches to be surrounded by a cemetery. This was for example the case of the Stephansdom and the Michaelerkirche in the city center. In the 18thcentury, Kaiser Joseph II decided to ban cemeteries from Vienna’s inner districts and one of the cemeteries…

There is no shortage of churches in Vienna, some better and some lesser known. One of the probably lesser-known churches that deserves a second look is the Evangelische Kreuzkirche Hietzing. Although it was not completed until 1931, it borrows heavily from earlier traditions and restrictions that were placed on the building of Protestant churches. Although…

Together with excellent tap water, fresh air, urban silence and Mahlzeit, Vienna’s trams are part and parcel of the list of things that make this beautiful city tick. Like most things that function almost flawlessly, it is easy to just take them for granted as something that has been here forever and will be here…

We have told you a bit about Otto Wagner and his influence on Viennese architecture and design. Perhaps his largest project was the design of the Stadtbahn that today can be seen along the metro lines U4 and U6. An important station of the Stadtbahn was one located at Karlsplatz as it was the first…

The Frankgasse in Alsergrund (Vienna’s 9th district) may not be a household name unless you live in the area. But on this street there is an organization with a long history that has its home, namely the Gesellschaft der Ärzte in Wien (College of Physicians in Vienna). Established in 1837 with the goal of promoting…

In February 2018, the former Grand Etablissement Gschwandner was reopened under the name “REAKTOR” as a new place of arts and culture. The Etablissement Gschwandner was an extension of the typical Viennese Heuriger, which had been run by the Gschwandner family since the 1830s, and it was built in 1877. It was among the most…

The Palais Fürstenberg, located in the first district, is among Vienna’s most picturesque buildings that is usually closed to the public. It is not precisely documented when exactly and by whom the neoclassicist Palais was designed, but it was probably built around 1720 and the style was influenced by the architect Lukas von Hildebrandt. The…